"See, my loved Britons, see your Shakespeare rise, An awful ghost confessed to human eyes! Unnamed, methinks, distinguished I had been, From other shades, by this eternal green, About whose wreaths the vulgar poets strive, And, with a touch, their withered bays revive. Untaught, unpractised, in a barbarous age, I found not, but created first the stage. And if I drained no Greek or Latin store, 'Twas that my own abundance gave me more. On foreign trade I needed not rely, Like fruitful Britain, rich without supply. In this, my rough-drawn play, you shall behold Some master-strokes, so manly and so bold, That he who meant to alter, found 'em such; He shook, and thought it sacrilege to touch. Now, where are the successors to my name? What bring they to fill out a poet's fame? Weak, short-lived issues of a feeble age; Scarce living to be christened on the stage! For humour _farce_, for love they _rhyme_ dispense, That tolls the knell for their departed sense."
It is impossible to read these lines, remembering Dryden's earlier opinions, without acknowledging the truth of the ancient proverb, _Magna est veritas, et praevalebit_.
The "Spanish Friar," our author's most successful comedy, succeeded "Troilus and Cressida." Without repeating the remarks which are prefixed to the play in the present edition,[34] we may briefly notice, that in the tragic scenes our author has attained that better strain of dramatic poetry which he afterwards evinced in "Sebastian." In the comic part, the well-known character of Father Dominic, though the conception only embodies the abstract idea which the ignorant and prejudiced fanatics of the day formed to themselves of a Romish priest, is brought out and illustrated with peculiar spirit. The gluttony, avarice, debauchery, and meanness of Dominic are qualified with the talent and wit necessary to save him from being utterly detestable; and, from the beginning to the end of the piece, these qualities are so happily tinged with insolence hypocrisy, and irritability, that they cannot be mistaken for the avarice, debauchery, gluttony, and meanness of any other profession than that of a bad churchman. In the tragic plot, we principally admire the general management of the opening, and chiefly censure the cold-blooded barbarity and perfidy of the young queen, in instigating the murder of the deposed sovereign, and then attempting to turn the guilt on her accomplice. I fear Dryden here forgot his own general rule, that the tragic hero and heroine should have so much virtue as to entitle their distress to the tribute of compassion. Altogether, however, the "Spanish Friar," in both its parts, is an interesting, and almost a fascinating play; although the tendency, even of the tragic scenes, is not laudable, and the comedy, though more decent in language, is not less immoral in tendency than was usual in that loose age.